Gonzaga at No. 3 in The Athletic’s men’s college basketball 2024 preseason Top 5
Six days away from tipoff of the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season, we’re rolling out our final top five of the offseason. We’ve interviewed coaches, talked to scouts and used any preseason intel we could find to set a baseline for the season ahead, ranking teams through more of a long-term lens rather than a snapshot of where everyone stands right now.
It’s easy to overanalyze charity exhibition and secret scrimmage results. Although they are data points worth considering, those games are not always treated like a regular-season game. They can make us better informed than we were two weeks ago when the Associated Press preseason poll dropped. Next week, everything gets real.
1. Alabama. Nate Oats has depth reminiscent of John Calipari’s best Kentucky teams. Oats has a recruiting pitch that sounds familiar, too: “Everybody could have played a lot more minutes and got a lot more shots had they gone elsewhere. A lot of guys chose to come here to win and develop for the next level. And honestly, the NBA is not looking for minutes per game, points per game. They’re more looking for, do you know how to play the game and are you efficient in your minutes?”
Unlike most of Calipari’s teams, Oats’ will play an NBA-like system that prioritizes space and shooting a ton of 3s. It’s safe to assume the offense is going to be great again with the returners he has back, most notably Sears. Alabama’s national title chances will come down to its defense. Oats signed the best defensive big man in the transfer portal in Clifford Omoruyi and also hired Brian Adams, a longtime NBA assistant best known for helping run the defenses of Doc Rivers’ teams.
“We also added some guys with some competitive fire that we were maybe missing a little bit last year until it finally showed up in March,” Oats said. “We’ve got a deeper team, so if guys don’t want to play hard, they’re just not going to play this year. To me, effort is a big part of being good on defense, and we just didn’t get good enough effort last year.”
That’s not just coachspeak: This roster’s depth is ridiculous. Oats said he’ll try to play everyone early and will likely eventually settle on a rotation of nine. Some of his new lineups could make his offense even harder to guard. Oats said the freshman Sherrell shot 40% from 3 during summer and fall practices. Having too many good players can pose a chemistry challenge, but if Oats can convince his guys that sacrificing for the greater good wins, he has the talent to bring Alabama its first basketball national title.
2. Houston. The Cougars replaced do-everything point guard Jamal Shead with Oklahoma transfer Milos Uzan but otherwise return their entire rotation from a year ago. Shead was Houston’s leader and rock, but this season’s roster might have a higher ceiling if it stays healthy.
Shead’s first-half ankle injury hung over their Sweet 16 loss to Duke, but the Cougars were also missing Joseph Tugler and Terrance Arceneaux, both of whom looked terrific in a blowout charity scrimmage win against Texas A&M this preseason. Uzan has fit in seamlessly as Shead’s replacement, helping get open looks for Houston’s best shooters and bringing an unselfish approach that rubs off on his teammates. “We’re not playing offensively like we played last year,” head coach Kelvin Sampson said. “This year, we’re more free flowing. You’re going to see a lot of extra passes. The ball’s going to move better. Last year, we played the way we had to to win.”
This year the go-to guys should be L.J. Cryer, Emanuel Sharp and J’Wan Roberts. Roberts is one of the nation’s best passers at his position, and as a sixth-year player, the game has slowed down for him. Tugler was becoming an elite defensive big before his foot injury last year and looks to be even better as a sophomore. “The X-factor for us is (Tugler),” Sampson said. “A lot of nights he’ll be our best player because he’s good enough to be.”
Shead will be missed the most on the defensive end, but Houston’s defense looked just as dominant as ever against A&M. It’s hard to imagine Sampson letting one of his teams slip on that side of the floor.
3. Gonzaga. The Bulldogs had a top-five offense in college basketball from mid-January on after Mark Few inserted Ben Gregg into the starting lineup. It could again take Few some time to figure out his best lineups this year: He has eight startable players.
Newcomers Khalif Battle and Michael Ajayi are scorers who make this offense even more dangerous, but Gonzaga needs to improve on the other end. The last two seasons, the Zags have had two of their worst defenses of the last 15 years, ranking 73rd (in 2023) and 51st (in 2024) in adjusted defensive efficiency.
“I don’t get hung up on analytics, but there are some things I focus on and our (defensive efficiency rating) was way too high last year,” Few said. “And so that’s definitely been the focus of summer practices and fall practices. Just driving that number down, becoming a Top 25 team there, because I know our offense should be rock-solid with what we have returning and what we’ve done in the past.”
The early returns weren’t great in a 96-93 charity exhibition loss to USC, but this ranking is a long-term bet on Gonzaga improving throughout the year. Few usually figures out the best way for his team to play during the conference schedule. The Zags have been the most consistent team in college basketball the past 10 seasons, appearing in nine straight Sweet 16s and projected to be a No. 1 seed in the pandemic-canceled 2020 tournament.
The NBA departure of Anton Watson, Gonzaga’s best defender and a connector on the offensive end, is a big one. But Few returns six of his seven top rotational players, which suggests it should be another great year in Spokane.
4. UConn. To win a third consecutive national championship, Dan Hurley will have to replace four starters from the squad that cruised through the 2024 bracket.
“Like last year, we lost NBA guys off a great team and have to figure out some new parts,” Hurley said. “We’re obviously happy to have a guy like Alex (Karaban) back. We expect and need him to play to the All-America level.”
Freshman Liam McNeeley’s long-distance shooting will fit like a glove within Connecticut’s offense. The loaded guard and wing group includes breakout candidates Solomon Ball, Jaylin Stewart and Jayden Ross. NBA scouts who have been through to see the Huskies practice have noted that they all looked quite impressive after a year of developing within Hurley’s scheme.
If there is a question about this roster, it’s probably in the frontcourt. The Huskies will need 40 minutes per game from centers Tarris Reed and Samson Johnson, or else will risk going quite small and looking at lineups with Karaban at the five. The coaching staff will be able to ride the matchup that makes the most sense on any given night, but both will need to play well for this year’s team to thrive.
5. Duke. Yet again, the Blue Devils have a monster freshman class led by the potential No. 1 overall pick. And yet again, most of the team’s scholarship players (10 of 12) weren’t on the roster last season. Cooper Flagg is the most decorated high school player to enter college basketball in years, but the most important thing he brings for coach Jon Scheyer is the way that he plays.
“Competitiveness, straight up,” Scheyer said. “The competitiveness on a daily basis, in every drill, in every breakdown, in every 5-on-5. He knows no other way. That is an amazing quality to see and coach.”
Scheyer has built a roster of enormous players across the positional spectrum who can all guard multiple spots on the floor. No scholarship player is listed under 6-foot-5. The Blue Devils have a chance to be an elite defense thanks to that versatility.
“Positional size was a priority for us to recruit,” Scheyer said. “Our teams through the years, we’ve been at our best when we’ve been switchable with multiple ballhandlers and shot-makers on the court. I don’t want us to have an identity based on who we’re playing, though. I want us to have an identity understanding how we can switch big or small but still play to our own strengths on offense while also maintaining the toughness we have to have on defense.”
NBA scouts are raving about freshman wing Kon Knueppel, who they say looks like the team’s second-best player behind Flagg. Knueppel is a scoring machine, who doesn’t have particularly quick feet but knows where to be on defense. Expect him to join Flagg as a one-and-done.
On the interior, Khaman Maluach’s development will be critical.